I, Heartless
by emiphiste
Summary: He reached for the dark Keyblade, turning it over in his hand appraisingly – the dull ache in his joints was subsiding, and even the burns on his hand radiated a comfortable warmth, followed by an echo of sudden, electrifying cold.


AN: Elaboration/insight on the sequence from KH1, wherein Sora becomes a Heartless. Needs a beta.

Disclaimer: If anyone in this story belonged to me, I would be filthy stinking rich. Since I'm anything but, you may rightly assume that I'm merely playing with someone else's toys - Square Enix and Disney Interactive's toys, to be exact - and that I may, someday, give them back. When I feel like it.

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**I, Heartless**  
_by Emiphiste_

Sora's eyes flitted from small, bipedal blob to small, bipedal blob; they surrounded him slowly, every step they made with disproportioned black feet was jerky and predatory at the same time. He would not let fall his Keyblade, but a withering panic began to twist its sinews about the very muscle these creatures longed to steal.

One of them stepped ahead of the rest. Its antenna quirked in what appeared to be feverish anticipation, gnarling its clawed fingers and stooping its head in a low, tense bow. Sora swallowed, hesitating no longer in his attack, lunging forward with a liberating, "Ha!" and dealing the creature an intense blow with the Keyblade. It chittered once as it smashed into the wall, then died.

The other Heartless took that as their cue to swarm against the Keyblade Master, swiping at him with a flurry of claws and jutting forth their heads to bite him on the knees. Sora let out a sharp and astonished proclamation of pain, then flung the thing away from him with a growl. The adrenaline surged through every nerve in his body. A tingle and tightness pulled at him from the inside, and he felt his fingers grip the Keyblade so tightly that the hilt might have been impressed with marks from his gloved hands were he to have taken them away.

Instead, he swung forward and spun to the side, the vibrations from each contact with a Heartless powering the desire to swing harder next time; to drive them all to death with a single, calculated blow. It wouldn't work this way, but the hatred Sora felt toward these creatures intensified with every scratch at his chest, every failed attempt at stealing his heart. What had once been panic now seemed to take the form of rage, and with this stronger emotion, Sora was able to make quick work of the little bastards.

The newly-slain body of a Heartless lay at his feet, ethereal tendrils of black evaporating from its pores as it shrank like a sand hill in a windstorm. Sora gave the Heartless a gentle nudge with his shoe as the final bits of its physical material vanished into the air before the dark, sweeping mist reached his knees.

Without further deliberation, Sora went to find the others.

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"_A Keyblade that unlocks people's hearts. I wonder –"_

He found her lying there in the center of the room, her body still and waxen. Again, panic gripped him. A single gasp marked the time it took for Sora to limp to Kairi's side; he lifted her cold hand with his warm one, then elevated her to a sitting position. He scrubbed the other hand – lacerated and still painfully blistered from the battle with both the Malificent-Dragon and Riku – exhaustedly over puffy, red-rimmed eyes. Kairi's eyes were the complete opposite of his; they were closed as if she were completely at peace, rather than hanging uncertainly – or perhaps falling completely – from the unsteady precipice above Nothingness. "Kairi," Sora whispered urgently, tracing a calloused hand down his friend's face. She didn't respond. "_Kairi,_" Sora said again. His voice cracked on the tail of the last syllable.

Donald and Goofy stood at the top of the stairs, exchanging a solemn glance. They, too, had lost loved ones – yet neither of them could empathise with the tragedy that lay before them. The Keyblade Master's head was bent over the girl's small frame.

When Sora finally glanced up at his two companions, however, he was smiling. Tiny pinpricks danced around his eyelashes. He reached for the dark Keyblade, turning it over in his hand appraisingly – the dull ache in his joints was subsiding, and even the burns on his hand radiated a comfortable warmth, followed by an echo of sudden, electrifying cold. Sora's smile never faltered.

_Feel better, Kairi._

Deftly, he raised the Keyblade, his left hand reaching to hold firmly the hilt, quickly positioning the weapon as if it were a violin. Goofy gasped, then shouted, "Sora, hold on!"

"No, wait!" Donald squawked. They both moved forward to prevent the sacrifice, but they were too far away – they could never persuade him in time –

In a single fluid motion, Sora drove the Keyblade into his chest, and within moments, into his heart. He had but a moment to marvel at the keen edge of the blade; how it had pierced the skin and sliced through so much barricading matter without much protest. However, it was only a moment. The edges of his vision began to darken, and everything seemed to get cold very quickly.

He could barely make out Donald's anguished cry. It was a dull echo in his mind – his mind, which was growing blissfully blank. "Sora! _Sora –_"

There was darkness. No longer was he surrounded by shadows – or Shadows, as it were – as a light source would not have been able to break through the impenetrable void. Sora was freefalling; he felt his stomach twist and jump and tighten, just as they had when he'd accidentally lost his grip on the vines in Tarzan's jungle

_What's – what's happening to me?_

Sora gritted his teeth and clenched his fists, his back contorting into an ungraceful arch. Something was inside him – inside his chest, weaving its way between ribs and entwining its searing coils around his heart. "Oh-!" Sora exclaimed, falling easily to the invisible enemy, his hands going limp at his side. _Falling. _The coils tightened, and there was a burst of light. The pain, however, had completely subsided. _Falling into darkness._

His right hand trembled as he tried to lift it skyward – or what he thought was skyward, as it was impossible to tell – feeling as if he needed to catch something that was steadily drifting away. "I," he heard himself say, though it was not himself and yet he knew what his voice sounded like by the resonance in his ears, so it couldn't have been any other.

"I," he answered himself hoarsely, and let himself be consumed by the darkness.

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Sora lifted his clawed black hand to hover, wavering back and forth over his beloved Keyblade. It would not take him. Rather, it seemed to glare at him, pitying its own respite, for Sora was sure that his weapon, for a human hand, would tremble at the chance to cut him entirely from existence.


End file.
